Kuwait would continue to pursue its foreign policy that it has reiterated over the past many decades, on top of which is the Palestinian issue, as well its policies of preventive diplomacy and mediation, said Kuwait’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Mansour Al-Otaibi.

Ambassador Al-Otaibi was speaking on the occasion of Kuwait assuming presidency of the 15-member United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for the month of February. Kuwait was elected as non-permanent member to the UNSC for a two-year term in 2018 after a hiatus of 40 years and last held presidency of the UN’s top security policy body in February 1979.

Speaking at a press conference held at the UN headquarters in New York on Thursday 1 February, Kuwait’s representative reviewed the agenda of the Council and elaborated on the top foreign policy priorities of Kuwait during its membership and presidency of UNSC.

He pointed out that during the past decades, the State of Kuwait has made many moves in the Middle East and that during its presidency of the Security Council, the country would focus on developing the Council's working mechanism to increase efficiency and transparency, improve the working methods of the Council and humanitarian issues.

He said that the most important session of the Security Council will be an open discussion session on the working methods of the Security Council, a ministerial briefing on the principles and purposes of the United Nations Charter, in addition to a session on the situation in Palestine and a focus on the humanitarian situation in Gaza after 50 years of occupation.

In response to a question on the position of the State of Kuwait on the Palestinian issue, Al-Otaibi said, "We support the Palestinian position and outcome of the meeting of Arab foreign ministers, where the participation of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the meeting of the Security Council on the Palestinian issue was recently confirmed."

Ambassador Al-Otaibi stressed the importance of the Palestinian president's planned visit to the United Nations, which comes after a meeting of Arab foreign ministers and the Arab action to push forward the peace process to deal with Israeli violations of Jerusalem.

Regarding Kuwait's position on the transitional phase in Syria, he said that this stage was adopted in the Geneva Declaration, which included a number of resolutions and the position of Kuwait is to support the implementation of the resolution and the Geneva Declaration.

On the forthcoming conference on Iraq reconstruction, the Kuwaiti Ambassador said "We expect the participation of more than 70 countries at a high level where preparations are being made in coordination with the governments of Kuwait, Iraq, the United Nations, the European Union and the World Bank to mobilize support for the reconstruction of the liberated areas."